Steve Adams and Conservative supporters at Alexandra Palace today

FROGNAL BY-ELECTION RESULT:

STEVE ADAMS (Conservatives) 1,103 ELECTED
———————–
SIMON LICKERT (Labour) 519
SARAH HOYLE (Lib Dems) 372
CHARLES HARRIS (Green) 219

THE Conservatives have held a council seat in their safest Camden ward – and some of their activists think there may be even better news for the party to come.

Steve Adams was named the new councillor for Frognal ward and is expected to be immediately installed as the leader of the Tories on Camden Council. He replaces Gio Spinella, the outgoing leader who triggered the poll by stepping down with the explanation that he was tired from his long service on the opposition benches.

The result was read out this afternoon (Thursday) in the hall at Alexandra Palace by council chief executive Jenny Rowlands – the setting for the wider count for the London elections in the Barnet and Camden twin-borough constituency and the voting in the Mayor of London ballot.

Sadiq Khan entered the latter contest as the runaway favourite to secure a third term in the hotseat but vote verification figures at the counting centres around London revealed a low turnout in some key Labour areas, allowing Tories to retain hope that their candidate Susan Hall could yet pull off one of the greatest election shocks in UK history. The term “very quietly confident” was used among Conservative campaigners at Ally Pally where a belief was growing that the often predicted lop-sided result in favour for Mr Khan was no longer on the cards.

Cllr Adams, however, said that it was local issues which helped him cement his victory in the Frognal ward – a territory in Hampstead which no party other than the Conservatives has ever managed to win a seat.

Asked to explain his success, he said: “It was hard work, and saying the right thing on the doorstep. The perfect illustration of it is the poor idea for a traffic scheme that Camden had put forward in the area – Kidderpore Avenue and Ferncroft Avenue  – which has got to be challenged; which was even described by the Labour activists we’d really meet on the road as a “gift” to me, because it illustrated exactly the problem of an unquestioned, unopposed Camden Labour administration.”

Cllr Adams added: “It is a good ward for the Conservatives. In the current political climate, nonetheless, the decision, the level of the decision in Frognal has been quite pleasing. It’s not reached any level of worry and that’s a reflection, I think, that the national situation didn’t play here. This election was played as the local situation and I go back to it – it’s local issues, and looking after people.”

It’s official: Steve Adams signs in as a new councillor

This will be his second stint on the council having formerly represented the Belsize ward at the council until 2022 when he lost his place to the Liberal Democrats. In those boroughwide results, the Camden Conservatives slipped to just three seats and lost the title of the main opposition to the Lib Dems, whose hustle in this by-election resulted in a third place finish behind the Tories and Labour.

“I’ll be doing more of what I’ve done before,” said Cllr Adams.”Looking after residents in Frognal and Camden as a whole.”

He said he was not in a position to comment on whether Ms Hall was likely to spring an almighty surprise when counters get to work on Assembly and mayoral votes tomorrow (Saturday).

Cllr Adams is congratulated by Labour council leader Georgia Gould

Cllr Adams conceded that general election polling had not been good for his party this year, but this only added to the strength of his local success.

“We’ve been in power as a party nationally for an awfully long time,” he said. “Not only have many of the people taken against us, it is fair to say that virtually all the press, quite surprisingly even what has been previously regarded as being the right wing, broadsheet press, are now well and truly against the present Conservative government. Even when they have a good week, it’s amazing how it turns out to be a bad week when it’s written up.”

He added: “That form of tiredness, it inevitably seeps through. Just look at the Scots Nats: you know they’ve been in power for way too long and they’ve been rumbled. I think that they have been found lacking because of their management of education and many other things in Scotland has been frightful. I don’t think the Conservative government’s record has been anywhere near that bad but the passion has still come out that it’s ‘time for change’.

“I think we should be fighting it. But you have to be realistic, it is not good nationally – again, back to Frognal, the result was conclusive enough to not have been affected by that.”